Blood in the Shadowdark and the Hall of the Bronze Bull

The campaign began under the canopy of the shadowdark, guided only by a crude, grease-stained map purchased from a local drunk. The party—consisting of the halfling priest Doc, the kobold wizard Kritkrit, the half-orc fighter Donk, and the dwarf fighter Gorm—pushed through the gloom until they found a clearing to make camp. Rest was cut short when a giant wolf lunged from the darkness, catching Doc with a vicious bite. While Kritkrit slept soundly through the initial chaos, Doc fired back with a timely bolt. The beast was repelled, leaving the party bruised but intact as they pressed onward to their true destination.

Emerging from the trees, they reached the ancient citadel hidden deep within the dense forest. The fortress sat thirty to forty feet above the forest floor, featuring flat roofs and a network of tunnels funneling inward toward a central tree. The adventurers scouted three distinct points of entry: a south-west open tunnel that quickly plunged into pitch blackness; a large, ornate southern entrance marked by two bucking bulls leaping toward one another, surrounded by heavy multi-legged footprints; and a quiet northern entrance featuring a shattered door and ascending stairs. Using a sharp deduction, Doc assessed that the animalistic tunnel was likely creature-created, the southern doors showed recent, unsettling traffic from multi-legged horrors, and the northern entrance was undisturbed and old. The party chose the northern path, stepping past the shattered threshold into the quiet dark.

Moving cautiously down the ancient jungle-worked walls, the party turned a corner and came face-to-face with a towering ten-foot-tall bronze bull statue. Green light emanated from its form, centered on an emerald gem bearing a skull on one horn. Doc, ever the jeweller, appraised the stone as a one-hundred-gold-piece emerald worth one experience point to each of them. With Doc checking the stonework every five feet, they navigated the hallway until a sharp, ominous click echoed through the corridor.

Instinct took over as the party bolted. Doc and Kritkrit failed their initial saves, but their small statures saved them from instant death. Desperate, Doc tried to cast a healing spell on Kritkrit and fumbled, losing the divine magic entirely. Using Kritkrit as a nimble decoy, the boys scrambled up onto the bronze bull while Doc made a series of precise, desperate grabs, rolling an eighteen, a sixteen, and a twenty to successfully pry the gem free and pocket it. They dropped down from the statue to retreat, but as they prepared to head out, the ambient light died completely. In the sudden pitch black, a terrifying human centipede writhed into view before them. Reacting on pure instinct, Doc cast light once more just as the darkness closed in around them.